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Victory at last: Child 'slave' gets peace prize

Om Prakash Gurjar has received the International Children's Peace Prize for leading a campaign against child slavery.

TNN | Nov 21, 2006, 03:01 IST

NEW DELHI: When five-year-old, Om Prakash Gurjar was taken away from his parents and turned into a child slave. He ploughed, sowed and harvested crops. He tended to cattle and handled pesticides. All without wages. On Sunday, he received the International Children's Peace Prize worth 100,000 dollars (about Rs 45 lakh) for leading a campaign against child labour and child slavery.

The 14-year-old from Dwarapur village near Jaipur in Rajasthan received the award from joint Nobel prize winner and former President of South Africa, Frederik Willem De Klerk at Hague. Later, at an open-air concert at Amsterdam's Dam Square, mega pop groups such as UB40 and the Sugababes played to honour Om and his message.

Expressing his views with the help of an interpreter, he said that adults must listen to kids. "This is our right. They have to listen. These are children's rights. And if they are not abiding with that right, we will work harder to make them hear," Om said.

When eight, Om was rescued by NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan's activists. He was keen to study and enrolled in a nearby government primary school. He was reunited with his family, but still lives in a Bal Ashram. His family is too poor to take him in.

Over the years, Om initiated several activities to bring attention to children's rights. He has helped create "child friendly" villages where child labour is not accepted. He has also battled against unlawful contributions a poor parent often has to make in rural Rajasthan to let their children go to school.

And he has campaigned for birth certificates that protect children from exploitation and gives them the right to healthcare and education. On his own, he has arranged more than 500 such documents.

He says birth registration is the first step towards enshrining children's rights, proving their age, helping to protect them from slavery, trafficking, forced marriage or serving as a child soldier.

The International Children's Peace Prize is awarded every year to an exceptional child, who has devoted himself or herself to children's rights. The prize consists of a statuette, the 'Nkosi' and a monetary award of $100,000.

The statuette is named after young Nkosi Johnson, who dedicated the prize posthumously in 2005, four years after he died of AIDS at age 12.

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